I don't really see anything bad in people leaving BW. Now they can finally do what they belong to rather than creating subpair games.

Because we have another great game company that has been driven into their grave by the Worst Company in America. The founders are getting out of the business iirc. To have a company be so spectacularly bad that they force someone's passion to become their nightmare, is a terrible thing.

TL;DR - Gamers area bunch of whiny assholes, and this is one of the main reasons why after 3 years of education on the subject, I no longer have any desire to get into the game development industry. At all.

Because we have another great game company that has been driven into their grave by the Worst Company in America. The founders are getting out of the business iirc. To have a company be so spectacularly bad that they force someone's passion to become their nightmare, is a terrible thing.

I can already see what that C&C game is going to be like

Give the resistance fighters 300 tiberium?Yes
Trade for gasNo

And then at the end your choices wont matter and they will have to release a DLC explaining the ending.

I can't believe the company that really hooked me into RPGs is now a hollowed out corpse puppet control by the same assholes who make madden + Year and generic first person shooter 6.

He's the lead writer, all the story is free. I can understand why he'd be upset. If I did a lot of work on something, and other parts of the company did a lot of work on stuff too, and they decided to give away the parts I did and charge a premium for the other parts, I'd be a little upset. So what I did isn't worth money?

I realize that isn't really what BW was doing, but can understand how he would feel that way. All the story for the classes is in the beginning of the game, which is the part you HAVE to give away in a freemium model. It would still rub me wrong if I was in his shoes.

On top of that, really, the vast majority of the writing is over. His job was probably coming to an end anyway as all the class stories have been written. The vast majority of the story is in the leveling. Leveling is done.

He's the lead writer, all the story is free. I can understand why he'd be upset. If I did a lot of work on something, and other parts of the company did a lot of work on stuff too, and they decided to give away the parts I did and charge a premium for the other parts, I'd be a little upset. So what I did isn't worth money?

I realize that isn't really what BW was doing, but can understand how he would feel that way. All the story for the classes is in the beginning of the game, which is the part you HAVE to give away in a freemium model. It would still rub me wrong if I was in his shoes.

On top of that, really, the vast majority of the writing is over. His job was probably coming to an end anyway as all the class stories have been written. The vast majority of the story is in the leveling. Leveling is done.

What is going on with Bioware recently? They only been merged with EA a few years since 2008? four years since that time and people are leaving. I can understand cutting half the work force in Austin TX without blinking an eye. Because they are a seperate from the candiinain company. But Co Founders of the company leaving?

I am so so glad that DA3 already in the process to be delivered at the end of this year. It makes me wonder with all this negative feedback if this is actually destroying the company. I don't just mean for TOR. I mean could this prevent them from making future games that we all like. There seems to be much more going on then the people know about and I'd like know what that is.

but in the end, we must accept that "we" are the minority, and we must bow to the generic first person shooter 6 consuming mass. maybe kickstarter projects and the digital distribution future will bring some projects for "us", I certainly hope so.

Nvm the actual consumers who are about as thankful and supportive as your local junkies. Imo EA might have sucked the soul out of Bioware but it's the so-called "fan" backlash that put the nail in the coffin.

As fans we shouldn't be expected to praise clear failures from their products. This *IS* EA's doing, but it's the fault of Ray and Greg for selling out in the first place. Whether they just wanted a piece of a larger pie, or if they honestly thought EA wouldn't destroy the company, we'll never know.

TL;DR - Gamers area bunch of whiny assholes, and this is one of the main reasons why after 3 years of education on the subject, I no longer have any desire to get into the game development industry. At all.

Don't create garbage, and people don't bring the pitchforks. The ME3 ending was abysmal, SWTOR was horrendous and Dragon Age 2 was a complete joke. None of those games were of the quality of past Bioware titles.

They should have stayed a PC developer and focused on what they did well, instead of trying to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd.

As fans we shouldn't be expected to praise clear failures from their products. This *IS* EA's doing, but it's the fault of Ray and Greg for selling out in the first place. Whether they just wanted a piece of a larger pie, or if they honestly thought EA wouldn't destroy the company, we'll never know.

Actually you can read EA's pronounced public strategy with the acquisitions and 'independent' publishing all over the place, but the company wiki is the easiest. You can read between the lines from hearing the CEO's statements that they definitely told all these companies that this was better for them, they would retain all creative and decision powers, and everything is a win for everyone.

You can also clearly see from the recent activities of EA that they didn't let that kind of behavior go on for too long. I'm sure they lured them in with the promise of freedom, only to choke back on the leash the second their signatures were on paper. You can look at SWTOR from inception to F2P and see EA's heavy hand all over the place.

Lots of people say SWTOR is garbage, but envision a world where something you are passionate about is not only restrained, but criticised, disagreed with, and forced to go different directions from start to finish. Then you have to go out in public with a fake smile on and try to tell the world that your labor of love is amazing, when you're actually dying inside from knowing Ritticello (sp) has used your creative genius as a urinal.

To all the people saying that .. him leaving w/o having another job to go to means it was really bad - and how horrible a situation it must've been, it doesn't work the same for rich people - he doesn't need another job after lossing/quitting his current job like regular folk do - so don't read too much into this. BUUUUUT, my problem here is person made shit tons of money doing a horrible job managing a new MMO (check my past posts I loved SWTOR - all of my problems come from its management) jumps ship with all his money and the game crashes and burns and EA/bioware take the heat. Wait a sec, i think that's how all businesses work in the US - scratch all that.

This isn't surprising at all but still kind of sad. I'm not sure why some people like to place all blame on EA. I'd agree that they seemed to have gave up support for the game prematurely. But the fact of the matter is they gave Bioware millions of dollars to produce TOR. And Bioware released broke world PvP that never got fixed. Bugs released with subsequent patches that never got fixed. Essential features that took some 6 months to release. And they still can't figure out how to put in chat bubbles as far as I know.

This isn't surprising at all but still kind of sad. I'm not sure why some people like to place all blame on EA. I'd agree that they seemed to have gave up support for the game prematurely. But the fact of the matter is they gave Bioware millions of dollars to produce TOR. And Bioware released broke world PvP that never got fixed. Bugs released with subsequent patches that never got fixed. Essential features that took some 6 months to release. And they still can't figure out how to put in chat bubbles as far as I know.

But wouldn't that support the idea that EA pushed the product out the door despite all of those problems? Wouldn't that be a blame for EA and not Bioware? And if EA was the driving force behind using the Hero Engine, wouldn't much of the problems inherently associated with said engine also be on EA? Maybe the Hero Engine hasn't exactly been kind when it comes to programming things like chat bubbles. We know that it has an extremely difficult time handling several users on the screen at once, which is the reason for broken world PvP.

Damn. I am not surprised, because we haven't heard from him in awhile. But it's still shocking. If there was anyone who's voice and face I associated with SWTOR, it was Daniel.

Pre-launch, I would scour the forums and fansites to find any interviews from "ABSolutely" Erickson. He always seemed to have the most passion for the game and it always got you pumped for release. I've never seen a company lose so many key players one after another...

Stephen Reid, Georg Zoeller, Rich Vogel, the Doctors, and now Daniel (I'm sure I'm missing a few others). The entire team that seemed the foundation of this game; all gone. I guess the only one left would be James Ohlen. He must be really kissing ass over at EA Corp. to still have his job. By the end of the year, they will have recycled the entire original team.

If the free-to-play coming next month doesn't improve things, you can bet that they will be closing the doors on this one. And the saddest part of all, is that this game may have been our last hope for a great Star Wars MMO. LucasArts won't risk it again. They would have been so much better off just making Kotor III.

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Apples and oranges, sir. Apples and oranges. The EA hype machine is nuts, and they talked about SWTOR like it would "change the way we viewed MMOs forever" and other similar hyperbole. If a publisher (because in EA/BioWare's case it is nearly always the publisher, not the actual developers) promises sunshine, rainbows and ponies for everyone yet fail to deliver on those promises, it is most definitely their fault. I firmly believe that consumers need to educate themselves more about the products they buy - especially in the case of gamers - but I don't believe that's an excuse for publishers to overhype their games.

I hear this alot. That EA promised this game would be a "game changer" but haven't really read this anywhere and ive followed TOR since about 2009.

---------- Post added 2012-10-04 at 12:46 PM ----------

Like for example, here is something from Bioware in 2008:

The game is a "story-based MMO" according to Kotaku’s liveblog of the event. "Something very different and very familiar," according to Dr. Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare.

So many bad assumptions in this thread I actually felt compelled to register and reply.

For starters, you can put the Hero Engine decision squarely on the shoulders of Bioware Austin. EA, which you must realize when you speak of them you are speaking about their publishing arm and not a development studio, had no real say nor did they care what engine Bioware was using. Their primary purpose is funding game development and/or distribution (and everything that comes with it).

Second, Bioware, like other studios EA acquires, does have complete autonomy in how they develop their games. Executive management checks in with the big, AAA titles to ensure things are going along smoothly and that objectives are being met. They also work with the studios on long term strategic plans. They do not make engine decisions nor will they force a game out the door. They will cancel or delay a title if it looks bad unless the license they purchased prevents them from doing so (ala NFL for Madden).

Third, Bioware messed up the release of TOR, not EA. They were in development for a LONG time and had about 600 people working on the game prior to launch. They bought a building in Austin to accommodate all of this. They were in beta for a long time as well and despite the negative feedback throughout and numerous issues from general testers AND EA friends and family testers they still released the game. This was after pushing their release back a few times internally. Bottomline was they had to get it out. They had to keep the lights on. Sure, they may have been able to keep developing but when you are constantly missing your deadlines at some point you need to let go. So you can blame poor Bioware project management, not EA.

Lastly, FTP was definitely pushed by corporate once they saw the subscriptions bleed like crazy. However, note that it is actually part of a global initiative for the company. It was simply accelerated in TOR and would have occurred regardless. I suppose if you feel FTP is what caused TOR to fail then there might finally be something for you to hang your hat on.

How do I know this? I left EA recently and worked in management. That is all the info I am comfortable posting. I will say I enjoyed my time there and will probably go back at some point. Just remember that when you hate so much at a company like EA, you are trashing the thousands of people who work really hard to make you great games. If you can do better, get an education and join the company or make your own.

How do I know this? I left EA recently and worked in management. That is all the info I am comfortable posting. I will say I enjoyed my time there and will probably go back at some point. Just remember that when you hate so much at a company like EA, you are trashing the thousands of people who work really hard to make you great games. If you can do better, get an education and join the company or make your own.

I want to say that you are full of crap, but then this little snippet reeks of EA spin. Maybe you do actually work there, but I don't believe half of what you say. I'm sure plenty of people at Bioware made mistakes, but you must want to see a man about a horse if you think I believe EA just sits back while everyone does their thing.

And in case you didn't notice, your 'alleged' company was just voted the worst company in America. So clearly it's not sunshine and puppy dog moonbeams as you claim it to be. If you would like to give us some direct evidence that you 'worked in management' at EA, then please do so.

Otherwise you just sound like someone who is blowing smoke up our butts for the sake of maintaining a public image if you actually work there. If you don't, maybe just someone wanting to be an internet celebrity for a day if you don't. There have already been several "I work for this company" posts littered in these forums that have proven to be nothing but illusion.